Battle of Ratisbon

Overview

The Battle of Ratisbon, also called the Battle of Regensburg, was a meeting engagement fought on 23 April 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars, between the army of the French Empire, led by Napoleon I, and that of the Austrian Empire, led by Archduke Charles. Scene of the last engagement of the Bavaria phase of the campaign of 1809, the brief defense of the city and installation of a pontoon bridge to the east enabled the retreating Austrian army to escape into Bohemia. During the assault, Marshal Jean Lannes led his troops up ladders onto the walls, and Napoleon was wounded in his ankle by a small artillery round. The shot had been fired at great distance and did not severely hurt the Emperor, but caused a contusion.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Ratisbon closed the Bavaria phase of the 1809 campaign. Although French forces under Napoleon, Lannes, and Davout engaged an Austrian army roughly 25,000 men smaller, the engagement's operational consequence lay less in the disparity of casualties—Austrian losses of roughly 8,000–8,900 against French losses of 1,000–2,000—than in what the Austrian rearguard achieved. The brief defense of Ratisbon and the construction of a pontoon bridge to the east allowed Archduke Charles to withdraw the bulk of his army into Bohemia intact, preserving it as a continuing field force. That escape would shape the subsequent course of the 1809 campaign, as the Austrians remained capable of further resistance. Napoleon was wounded during the assault—an artillery contusion to the ankle—marking a rare instance of the Emperor being struck in battle, though the injury did not remove him from command.

Tactics

Forces & casualties

Commanders (4)